Tagged: Bleeding Cool

The reviews are in! I was told this week that my column is mostly me “talking about yourself for 2 pages and then recommending a book.” While technically that is more of a synopsis than a review, the point still stands. I talk a lot about myself in this thing. There is a good reason for that though. I am a weirdo recluse who reads too many comics and can’t relate well to other people. I tend to wall off my emotions for fear of burdening others with my problems and I put on a big, farcical parody show of my own existence so that people will like me. I do this by talking about myself too much. My only real friend in life is Forbidden Planet’s Tech Wizard/Fresh Eater, Tyler, who I think hates me. I don’t value my own ideas and opinions so I try and build myself up into this larger than life character that is always trying to keep people entertained. This is why I have and how I rationalize having a column when I feel this deep rooted personal inadequacy. It’s a shell game, a distraction, using humor and long-winded anecdotes to keep people at arms length so they can’t realize that I don’t really have anything of substance to offer them. Thanks for bringing that up. Your criticism (synopsis) has been taken to heart. So this week we are going to TRY SOMETHING NEW. I am just going to write about some comics and remove myself from the dialogue entirely. I am bringing the integrity back to this column, this store, and comics journalism everywhere. I apologize for all the minutes of your life I have wasted with my sad, self aggrandizing charade and I hope you, my loyal-ish readers, will appreciate the new format.

First review: FIVE WEAPONS is a new 5 issue monthly comic book mini-series. FIVE WEAPONS is published by Image Comics Inc. FIVE WEAPONS is written by Jimmie Robinson. FIVE WEAPONS is pencilled by Jimmie Robinson. FIVE WEAPONS is colored by Paul Little. FIVE WEAPONS is lettered by Jimmie Robinson. FIVE WEAPONS is 32 pages, including ad materials. FIVE WEAPONS is full color, printed on 70 lb. low gloss stock with self cover. FIVE WEAPONS is rated T for Teen. FIVE WEAPONS is the story of a boy who is not properly equipped yet still attends a school for deadly assassins. FIVE WEAPONS is a spinoff of Jimmie Robinson’s semi-popular BOMB QUEEN series. In recent years Image Comics Inc., the publisher of FIVE WEAPONS, has had a higher than average success, rated against other independent comic publishers over the same period, of launching new intellectual property. Often times first printings of Image Comics Inc. #1 issues sell out at the distribution level and yield an average appreciation of 221% on the secondary market within a fiscal year. It is speculated that Image Comics Inc.’s sellout issues and surrounding media attention are, in part, based on the companies refusal to print overstock beyond the initial orders placed by Diamond Comics Distribution LLC at time of F.O.C. This leads to what some analysts deem to be an artificial scarcity that could be creating a “false” appreciation in value. The sustainability of that appreciation outside of the “speculation bubble” is based, in large part, on the intellectual properties options being picked up for development in a secondary medium. At the time of this writing FIVE WEAPONS has not been announced to have been optioned. Image Comics Inc. has recently stated that they are changing their policies in regards to overstock printing. How this will affect the secondary market for upcoming titles remains to be seen. Consumers looking to purchase a new story about superpowered assassins or looking to invest in a new property with sizable fiscal growth potential would do well to purchase FIVE WEAPONS #1 on or near Wednesday, February 27th.

Blaaaaaah. Barf. Snooze. The new format sucks. Integrity be damned. Actually just talking about books is boring. Sorry. We are going back to the old format of me talking about me talking about books. Sorry if it bums you out anonymous reader, but I don’t get paid to do this so I am beholden to no one but myself. Say it with me crust punks on St. Marks Place who only come to Forbidden Planet to try to charge their cell phones- “No gods! No Masters!” I might up the ante here and talk about me talking about me talking about books. I may already be doing that. We are getting meta here. I might pull a Grant Morrison and start making appearances in the comics in my columns. I might start lying about what the comics are about. I might start reviewing books that only exist in my head. Next week’s column is going to be called TRY SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT NOW NOR EVER WILL EXIST. It will serve no purpose other than to amuse me and abuse you, disloyal reader. And when I see you stop reading it in disgust in the store I will match your disgust with my own and I will follow you home and read it out loud to you until you beg me to stop, until you vomit. Who is the narcissistic self obsessed weirdo now, huh? Ok. Now let’s get back to sort of talking about comics.

I am going to cram a three-fer of Marvel books into one paragraph. Why? 2 reasons. 1. When I post my reviews of Marvel books Marvel staff don’t ever tweet or post about it. They are too busy “complaining” about Bleeding Cool talking about their books to bother to support small blogs of large comic book stores (not bitter). 2. But these books are something new from Marvel though so I should be covering them and you should be giving them a chance. The compromise? Less column space. First up- GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #0.1 (Oh WTF Marvel?!? What the Holy #&<@ is that? Use whole numbers!). Guardians is a funny one. A few years ago Marvel couldn’t pay you to give a $#!% about their “cosmic” books even though they were, for the most part, very good. Then they decided to make a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie so they pumped a lot of money into telling you you like Guardians Of The Galaxy and you believed them. Lucky of all of us the new book is really good. Successful cultural brainwashing! 2. ULTIMATE X-MEN #23 (A whole number! Yay!) Ultimate X-Men has been a Bermuda triangle for brilliant comic writers for years. Bendis, Millar, Vaughan, Kirkman, Carey, etc have all done some of their worst work there. For some reason Brian Wood didn’t notice this and launches his brand new arc this week. It isn’t just the best Ultimate X-Men has been, this is some of the smartest stuff Marvel has published in years. Read it. 3. X-TREME X-MEN Vol. 1: XAVIER MUST DIE. Marvel’s EXILES book was a brilliant and fun way to turn nobody characters into compelling leads. It worked well because the throw-away nature of the characters meant that the stakes always felt higher and the characters and writing reflected that. Marvel basically relaunched EXILES but wanted a much worse name that reminded us of awful 90’s comics, Mountain Dew, and rollerblading. Hence; X-TREME X-Men. Despite their best efforts to make something unappealing this book is quite fun. If it goes on long enough and writer Greg Pak is allowed to cut loose and chart his own course this book could be something worth really cherishing. It is off to a great start.

BART SIMPSON #80. The shocking “The Death of Bart” storyline wraps up in this issue with a brutal and heartbreaking conclusion. Bongo has done a great job of making Bart’s descent into the murky underworld of Springfield’s drug and human trafficking rings feel visceral, frightening, and most of all compelling. Bart is a real character pushed too far and the things he has had to do, while not morally acceptable, are understandable to the reader. He has made himself a pariah, but he has also made himself the last honest man. Much like Hamlet, when you started reading The Death of Bart arc you knew it had to end with his murder, but it doesn’t make it any less harrowing. When Bart finally meets his end the tragedy of the moment comes with something else, a palpable sense of relief that a life lived too hard can finally come to rest. Like the gun barrel he slowly puts in his mouth, we as readers are now participants in a crime that is equal parts heinous and catharticly beautiful. And, in Bart’s passing, Springfield itself dies a little too. When his limp body, battered, broken, and abused, is pulled from the river, for the first time in years we see Bart as the child he always should have been but never could be. And as the stonefaced residents watch Marge breaking down and clawing at her own skin, each resident of Springfield knows their role in the death of a boy who never stood a chance. Bart has always worked well as a metaphor for the working classes struggle to define itself and for America’s ability to cannibalize it’s own young for the sake of some poorly defined idea of progress. In that, the death of the last boy in Springfield, USA is the death of us all. A beautiful and tragic conclusion to one of the great cartoons of all time. Ay Caramba, Bart. Ay Caramba.

Valiant‘s stunningly good relaunch continues with BLOODSHOT Vol. 1: SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE. An inverse of Captain America, Bloodshot is the story of a government super soldier program gone horribly wrong. The Valiant books are as smart and pretty as almost anything at the Big 2, but the fresh characters give the stories a chance to cut loose and provide twists and turns you won’t see coming. X-O Manowar and Harbinger have already released their first trades and are fast becoming fan favorites for the superhero set and I expect Bloodshot to follow suit. For anyone who feels like some of their “people punching people” books have started to become stale, Valiant is trying really hard to give you a fresh alternative. And at $9.99 for the collection why wouldn’t you buy it?

NOBODY is omniscient, and we all make mistakes. Think I’m joking? WHO YA’ GOT? “God?” Is God a perfect, omniscient being that never makes mistakes? Really?

You think God would’ve created life on Earth if IT was omniscient enough to foresee “Bronies,” or the Star Wars prequels? IT doesn’t make mistakes? Have you ever SEEN a tongue louse, or Ceratothoa imbricata? The Coconut crab? ” You gonna’ tell me GOD wasn’t stupid crunk on ambrosia when IT created the naked mole rat?

The key to forgiveness is admitting to the mistakes. I, Unkiedev, would like to print some apologies.

I apologize to BOOM! Studio’s groovy comic book Adventure Time for not buying it earlier…I was not an early adopter to the TV show and have to come back, tail between legs to beg for a pardon. Luckily, BOOM! Has forgiven me with a 2nd edition reprint ofAdventure Time #1 this week.

I’m sorry to everybody that I didn’t recommend the ground-breaking and headline grabbing Life With Archie #16 last week. I can’t say I’m a regular Archie reader, and I rarely recommend comic books for speculation purposes, but no matter how you want to view the politics of the dang thing, a same sex marriage in such a mainstream comics is a positive sign for changing times…not to mention that copies are selling on ebay right now for $15 bucks and more.

Drama! Controversy! Comics! Dramictroversy! Dan goes over the latest and greatest comics in this week’s haul, plus the bru-ha-ha surrounding Kevin Keller‘s nuptials! If you’d like to show your support for comic that provide realistic (and super-realistic!) depictions of the gay experience, there’s a whole host of great comics to choose from!

Super-late article this week, as I’m split between a new Bleeding Cool project, prepare to speak to the attendees of AnimeUSA down in DC this weekend, and trying to put as much time into my new video games as possible (Uncharted 3 & Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for the record). Needless to say, I’ve been busy.

So as I’ve said in past articles, the DC Universe Classics line will be coming to an end sometime in early 2012, after 20 somewhat waves. I was under assumption that the line would be rebooted to reflect the new 52 stuff, but Matty Collector has announced that I am WRONG WRONG WRONG! The new line shall be called DC Universe All-Stars, and will kick off in 2012 with a long overdue Larfleeze figure (MINE!) Superboy Prime (Of retcon-punch fame), Flashpoint Plasticman (WHUT?!) & Batman Beyond. I can understand Bats Beyond & Larfleeze, as they’re extremely popular characters still relevant in the new 52, but DC has retconned Superboy Prime from existence with it’s “The Crises never happend” policy, and Evil Plastic Man lasted all of 2 issues of a Flashpoin tie-in mini-series. Odd choices are odd, but hey, at least the line continues to live on. No word if the Build-a-Figure is coming back though. Of course, FPNYC still has plenty of older and rarer DCU Classics in stock, so if there’s someone you’re looking for, you should swing by and see what we got.

On the Marvel side of things, I’ve commented in the past on how solid this fall’s “Spider-Island” crossover was rad (Where as “Fear Itself” kind of sucked IMO). What I failed to mention which was also great was the big X-event Schism, which was a smaller scale X-Men version of “Civil War”, focusing on Cyclops and Wolverine, (suddenly, it’s very 90s animated series X-Men) and their falling out, which leads to an east and west coast X-Men, both with very different mission operatives. The Jason Aaron written mini-series will be collected w/the Generation Hope tie-ins, as well as the ReGenesis prologue, come January in a single hard-cover, but FPNYC has received all 5 issue reprints w/ black & white inter-locking Frank Cho covers this week, so you can check those out now if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for the hardcover. Continue reading →

SHAMELESS PLUG: I wrote an article for BleedingCool covering the Capcom Fight Club from 2 weeks back. You can read it here.

Happy Monday FPNYC Faithful! For the most part, NYC was sparred Irene‘s wraith, and is currently doing fine, with the exception of some mass transit issues, which let’s face it, isn’t something just exclusive to bad weather. The store is back open, and the storm did not affect Diamond’s shipments, so all new comics and toys will be in this week on time (in theory, after an earthquake and tropical storm, I’m expecting a Godzilla attack soon), so come on by and see what we have in stock, as it’s pretty hard for me to cover everything we get in every week!

It’s been awhile since I’ve taken a look of the Kotobukiya Bishoujo statues, and we’ve recently received 2 new statues that are absolutely stunning! Representing the DC Universe is Supergirl as redesigned by the late and great Michael Turner, and Marvel’s Invisible Woman. What really impressed me with both of these statues is the shades of metallic blue used for each of the ladies; it’s sharpe and makes a nice contrast to both character’s blonde hair. Both statues maintain the excellent level of sculpt Kotobukiya products are known to have, down to the unique stands. Another feature worth noting is that Supergirl comes with a Streaky the Supercat! A flying cat with a cape is well worth the $50-60 bucks in my opinion (although a statue of internet sensation Nyan Cat would be welcomed as well)! Continue reading →

I’ve been sick as a dog with a summer cold (no fun, not pretty) all weekend, but feeling a little better. Let me show ya some items from the interwebs I’ve been occupying my time with…

This morning’s Sunday Interview over at The Comics Reporter features a conversation with American Born Chinese author Gene Luen Yang. The aforementioned book was the first graphic novel to have been nominated for a National Book Award and the interview focuses heavily on Prime Baby, which appeared in The New York Times Magazine. The man’s got credentials and some interesting things to say, and Mr. Spurgeon’s interviews always shine. Read it here.

If unconfirmed and unsubstantiated scuttlebutt is your thing, check out this rumor from Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool regarding a new shop coming to the little isle we call Manhattan. This rumor- and I stress RUMOR– was mentioned to me the other night at Jim Woodring’s original art show opening (a quick jaunt away in Brooklyn at Scott Eder’s Gallery and running through July 16th) and was the first I’d heard about it. After further investigation, and reserving opinion and conjecture for anther time and place (track me down in public or something for the time being), the most telling line in this piece is from Rich himself: “If you have any ideas about venue, name or owner, do let Bleeding Cool know.”

Did you know about this? www.teefury.com “TeeFury was started in 2008 by a bunch of artists who love limited edition t-shirts. At TeeFury you will find a new amazing tee every 24 hours for just $9 [!!!!, ed.]. Each of our tees are super limited-edition, being sold for only 24 hours or until sold out, which ever happens first. After 24 hours the t-shirt is removed from teefury.com, never to be made available for sale again (at least through teefury.com – artists retain full rights to their artwork and may choose to make the piece available at a future date).